Jennifer Way

As social network sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook continue to grow, they are giving a boost to the traditional methods people use to find jobs. Employers and job seekers have both taken notice.

Jennifer Way is the founder of Way Solutions, a Nashville-based company that provides career coaching, job search tools and resources for both employers and job seekers. She has seen firsthand the power social media has on connecting the right person with the right position. But she has also seen how people miss big opportunities by not capitalizing on all these sites have to offer.

“There are people doing amazing things with social media and then there are people who just haven’t figured out how to use it, or that they have to use it,” she says. “You have to know how to use it or else it is a big waste of time.”

And that can be a hard thing to determine in such a rapidly changing medium, especially for job seekers who just can’t imagine doing anything other than the cover letter/resume/HR route. And while those are still viable ways to get employed, in today’s market you need to use every tool available to get ahead.

“People are still using the traditional HR process, resumes, cover letters, the online application,” Way says. “What it is doing is changing how we have work conversations. Meaning, you can click a button and you can instantly be chatting with a recruiter at an organization. That is amazing. Before, it was a big black hole and nobody ever talks to you and you don’t know if they ever got your resume.”

Instead, social media sites are providing access never before seen between employer and worker. So not only are employers getting a good look at who is applying, the seeker can see exactly who it is they are aiming to work for.

“Job seekers in the public are getting a taste of what company culture is like in not such traditional, staunch business language,” Way says. “They are getting a more realistic view. And that transparency is going to continue to occur, which I find thrilling. It’s scary though. You have greater accessibility, you have greater communication and you have greater transparency. It also means greater accountability and we have not figured that out as a society yet.”

Scott Gordon

Amy Gray, owner of gray public relations in Franklin, has gained a few clients from Facebook. More personal than LinkedIn or Twitter, she likens a Facebook exchange to a face-to-face meeting, while LinkedIn is more of a business card exchange.

“On Facebook you feel like you have a personal connection to some people, which has led me to a couple of clients,” she says. “If people see my wall posts, I become top of mind for them. I just landed a new account the other day and this individual did not really know me, although he had heard of me and my firm. But his wife was friends with me on Facebook and said to contact me.”

For Scott Gordon, a technology recruiter with Vaco, social media sites serve as a reference check for potential candidates. In Nashville since 2000 and an early adapter of social media, the game of recruiting online is not the same now as it was back then.

“Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn sort of had their emergence four or five years ago, and the types of conversations and the way I have conversations has changed dramatically since then,” he says. “I can do much more via digital than I have to do face to face. I can have a conversation through a Facebook account that can go over the span of three or four days. And doing that helps me establish relationship with the people I am working with.

“For me, it is almost like a reference check. If I am interviewing someone or want to know something about someone, it is very easy to do now. It is much easier to do now that it was 10 years ago. I can search for a Twitter ID, I can look for a Facebook page, I can find their LinkedIn page. That way I know what I am getting into before I ever sit down to meet with that person.”

Of course it works the other way, too. As more and more businesses are forced to have a presence online via Facebook, blogs and tweets,job seekers can get a glimpse into what the company is about, and even who the interviewer is, before showing up for that interview.

“If anyone has any questions about me, I am pretty easy to find,” Gordon says. “People can follow me on Twitter and see what type of content I provide and determine whether they would like to work with me.”

Longtime Nashville resident Pinky Gonzales and his wife were looking to make a move to the Northwest. So the branding and marketing expert took to the Internet.

“I just started doing research, basically just trying to find target companies who looked like what was in line with what I was able to offer, and then reaching out through LinkedIn.”

In fact Gonzales, who taught brand development and digital strategy at Belmont for three years, wrote a blog entry about his experience called How LinkedIn Changed My Life. And it did because he knew just how to use it.

“First you have to identify your dream job and go after it, which is a big part of what I did,” he says. “Second is finding people who are like-minded in that particular industry or location and networking with them. Using LinkedIn Groups is part of that. There are all these different pieces of the puzzle to get a sense of what is going on, share the latest news, ask any questions, even posting a resume and letting people know you are interested in certain opportunities if anyone has a lead they can share. It makes it really easy.”

No longer on the hunt, Gonzales found work with the Portland Incubator Experiment, a job he loves in the city he wanted to move to – all through LinkedIn.

“It is so efficient, especially when you have a cool opportunity or you are a cool person and looking for a cool opportunity,” he says.

Courtenay Rogers found that out personally when she got the lead for her current job as the marketing coordinator for law firm of Bone McAllester Norton PLLC on Twitter. She had moved to Nashville two years ago and owned a company with her brother, but soon realized she wanted to be doing something different.

“I am pretty involved with social media and I tweet a lot and had just made some amazing friends though Twitter,” she says. “I sent an email to one of my friends who works at McNeely Piggott and Fox (Public Relations) saying I was looking to do something similar to what I was doing, but in more of a corporate environment. He replied he had just had drinks with a friend at a law firm looking for a marketing director and would find out more information for me.”

It turned out Rodgers and the law firm contact were already Twitter friends, and had actually spoken at a conference together at Lipscomb University about social media.

“We knew each other mostly through Twitter, and he said, ‘Yes, Courtney would be perfect for this job’ Within 24 hours I had an interview, and within two weeks I had the job.”

More than knowing someone who knows someone, Rodgers had already positioned herself as a prime candidate strictly though her tweets. “Good or bad, my reputation was already established,” she says. “There was no convincing them I was perfect for the job. They could see I was.”

Keeping your profile current and up-to-date is important, as is keeping the content you deliver relevant to the job you are looking for. But no matter how present you are online or how impressive your tweets are, you still need to back it up in real life.

“At the end of the day, you have to be well-spoken and be able to express yourself in writing clearly,” Gonzales says. “If you can do those things you can make a lot of progress, but ultimately you have to have something to offer. So all of these tools and techniques and tactics are great, but you better be able to have something that is of value in the first place or you are just spinning your wheels.”